Post a message about mystery radio shows you've enjoyed. Reminisce about listening to the shows or talk about rediscovering the shows that have been released on audiocassette.
Note: All previous radio mystery discussions have been combined into this discussion.

(89 previous messages)

Rik Shepherd - 12:21am Jun 25, 2008 PST(#90 of 98)
Another belief of mine: that everyone else my age is an adult, whereas I am merely in disguise (Margaret Atwood)

Don't know about vinyl, but there's an awful lot of episodes of The Shadow in mp3 or wav in the Old Time Radio section of the Internet Archive (www.archive.org)

Fran Hinkel - 02:36am Jul 18, 2008 PST(#91 of 98)
You can check out anytime you like...but you can never leave!

In the mid-70's, I remember listening to Kraft Mystery Theater on the radio. It was on an AM station - I wish I knew if it was still being played or how to listen to those stories again... each program was an hour long.

Fran Hinkel - 08:38am May 4, 2009 PST(#93 of 98)
You can check out anytime you like...but you can never leave!

I don't think I remember that on radio during that time period. I know there used to be a Suspense Theater, I think it was called, on radio. Kraft Mystery Theater would have been on early TV - late 40's to early late 50's - a new owner took over and I believe that is when it was called Kraft Mystery - I think it was Kraft Suspense Theater before that. In any case, I don't think these are available. You might be able to run down the old TV show that someone copied, but the quality will probably not be very good.

Rik Shepherd - 09:14am May 4, 2009 PST(#94 of 98)
Another belief of mine: that everyone else my age is an adult, whereas I am merely in disguise (Margaret Atwood)

There's a pretty fantastic collection of radio shows from the late thirties onwards in the Old-Time Radio department of the Internet Archive's audio section...

www.archive.org/details/oldtimeradio

I can't see any reference to the Kraft Mystery Theater as such, but there are several other company's Mystery Theaters, and the adverts in the middle of the Bruce/Rathbone Sherlock Holmes series change from Petri Wines to a clothing firm for a bit, so I guess sponsorship was a little flexible.

Anyway there's oodles there - Dragnet, at least two series of Holmes (American and British), Speed Gibson of the International Secret Police, ghost stories, Orson Welles Mercury Theater of the Air, Hercule Poirot's rewritten for America (n which Death on the Nile takes place on one of the Great Lakes), Dr Morelle, a 1942 Paul Temple, and so on.

A lot of them still have the adverts, so you can relive the heady days when you could buy coal dyed blue, and marvel at Dr Watson selling war bonds and reminding the listeners that unconditional German surrender hadn'tstopped the war against Japan.

Fran Hinkel - 01:44am May 5, 2009 PST(#95 of 98)
You can check out anytime you like...but you can never leave!

I'm a teacher in a Gifted program, and our next unit is going to focus on Radio Mysteries. I've found quite a few old favorite radio mysteries for my 3/4 graders and my 5/6 graders, but I can't find appropriate, short (15-25 minutes) radio/audio mysteries for my 1/2 graders.

Does anyone know of any radio mysteries or audio mysteries that are appropriate for 5-7 year olds? I'm trying to avoid murder, blood, etc.

It will probably be difficult. You might just want to read them some Encyclopedia Brown books.

My company Mystery Factory has kids party instructions. 'Fossil Furor at the Mudstone Museum' comes with an audio clip of the crime (stealing a fossil). You can listen to a sample of the clip at the Mystery Factory website but to get the whole clip you have to buy the mystery.

It's a game that works in conjunction with the clip to solve -whodunnit.It runs as a simple crime scene investigation and clue matching game. You can probably tell from the sample if it's too advanced but if they are gifted it might work.

a fond memory of radio-I used to listen to KOMO 1000 (seattle) late at night and when I moved into my doublewide I did not have tv.. the place was a wreck and I stayed up late one night cleaning and fixing things and listening to "The Big Clock." Good story, I forget who wrote it. I think Keenan Wynn was in it.